Renunciation

Why?

In the States, perhaps more than anywhere else, freedom is illusory. If one is denied freedom, one has no expectation of such. It might be argued that much of the world denies freedoms granted here. But are they really granted here? Democracy is a sham when some votes count more than other votes; when votes can be coerced by power to favour power; when mass persuasion, mass hysteria, mass delusion collude to garner votes. Majority grants authority, which, assuming power, determines, not right, but expedience, in assuring the continuation of power.

Rightness cannot be determined by majority appeal. Rightness is independent of the number of those who recognise it, defend it, uphold it. One person might be right, and everyone else misguided, beguiled, deceived. Vision is granted to but few, the few astute enough, courageous enough to see beneath and beyond the smoke and the mirrors.

But then, again, it is those in authority who identity and define the courses and constraints of mass gullibility. Authority is not concerned with general well-being, but with their own personal power and gain. Right is made wrong; wrong, as it is corrupted  by the wishes, motives, and schemes of those in power; fashioned into a fallacy of right, a delusion of right, sleights of hand, betrayals of loyalty, Trojan horses every one.

To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes. Artists stand alone. Their risks are their own; their responsibilities, their own; their failures, their own; their triumphs, their own; their art, their own. When lies overwhelm, there is art. When the truth is too much to bear, there is art.

If artists may be censored, why not drug companies, advertising every medication sanctioned between federal, state, and local governments, and the commercial interests that support, that is, buy, these governments?

Why not censor all the companies that produce foods toxic with artificial and genetically modified ingredients, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup and other corn derivatives, foods that flatter taste but feed not, swollen insufficiencies swallowed as names of better things.

Why not censor fast food establishments that thrive on American obesity?

Why not censor the denial of a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use birth control, whether or not to keep an unwanted pregnancy?

Why not censor Judæo-Christian dominance of American media, publishing, and morality?

Why not censor the continued political presence of England in Ireland’s six northern counties?

Why not censor Israel’s denial of a Palestinian homeland?

Why not censor Bashar Hafez al-Assad for his continued inhumanity to Syria?

Why not censor Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Xi Jinping for their violations of the sovereignty of neighbouring nations?

Why not censor hate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, trans-sensual, queer, third-gender, gender fluid, gender defiant, questioning, faggot, sissy, intersexual, omnisexual, pansexual,  asexual…slut, whore…?

Why not censor hate for pagans, non-believers, disbelievers, sceptics, metaphysicians, mystics…?

Why not censor hate?

Why not?

Because censorship is in the hands of those who – through the tyranny of the invented, misinterpreted, exaggerated threat, and the promise of protection from that menace – have deluded the masses, the majority, into begging for that pretended preservation, delivering themselves, in exchange, voluntarily, into slavery.

One either complies, or one rebels. Compliance ultimately leads to psychological, behavioural, physiological, metamorphic transmutation; to those turning points in the evolution of humanity rendering humanity more vulnerable to threat, more susceptible to deception.

Rebellion leads to ostracisation, to banishment, to revolution, to transformation, to change. To the activist, the alchemist, the eccentric, the exile, the genius, the hermit, the inventor, the maverick, the outlaw, the poet, the rebǝl, the revolutionary, the scientist, the sorcerer, the visionary…

Artistic expression is hampered by the definitions of others, the conventions of others, the expectations of others, and the fear of judgement, of disappointment, of censure, should these constraints be eluded or ignored.

Only the divergent, the aberrant, have the courage to rebel, to stand outside the law, to stand alone. Alone, their erudition, their dauntlessness, their candour, and their abnegation are unrestrained, unbounded by the identifications and the mores of those who must submit to belong, because association and attachment alone ensure their survival.

The most courageous act is to think for yourself – aloud – to disembroil yourself from the ravelled, choking maze of caution. You could be brilliant, but cowardice extinguishes brilliance. You could be truthful, but cowardice mutes the voice of truthfulness. You could be self-sacrificing, but cowardice refuses to act.

Endeavouring to explain who you are to people who believe they already know who you are is but a dissipation of resources. Their commitment is to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, misrepresentation. Yours, to unspoken defiance.

Question…

Elastic logic thinning grows delicate to marvels. Fine argument at finest disembroils the ravelled choking maze of caution. The sudden of the slow is bred, the curious of the common. Into the sceptic fog that mists infraction from the chronic rule stumbles intelligence a-rage to find the unthought wanton thought and, self-confounding, think it.

Rebǝl!